


Definitely Not Sisters

by LibraryMage



Series: Ktavnukkah 5777 [7]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Autistic Character, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9116074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Not long after the crew moves to Portland, Parker gets a visit from someone she never thought she'd actually meet.Written for day 6 of Ktavnukkah.  Prompt: family/friends.





	

Parker had a perfect memory for faces, so she recognized the dark-haired woman the second she walked through the door.  Parker turned around, hoping the woman wouldn’t be able to spot her.  They’d only seen each other’s faces for a second, after all.

“Excuse me,” she heard a voice behind her.

“Ashley,” Parker said, beckoning to the bartender who was on duty today.

“Actually, I'm here to see you,” the woman said.

Parker gritted her teeth before turning around to face the not-quite-stranger.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“Apparently I'm your sister,” the woman said, tilting her head a little, doing that annoying thing neurotypicals did where they tried to force eye contact with someone who was clearly avoiding it.

“I think you have me confused with someone else,” Parker said, trying to make her tone sound like _this conversation is over._   It’d be nice if she knew how tone was supposed to work.  She started to turn away again.

“It’s Parker, right?” the woman said.  “You’re my dad’s…other kid?”

Parker let out an annoyed sigh and turned back to Archie’s daughter.

“No,” she said.  “I'm not.  He likes to say I am, but I'm not, okay?  Are we done?”

“I just want to know what the hell is going on,” the woman said.  Parker clenched her teeth, shut her eyes for a second, and tilted her head toward the far end of the bar, away from the other customers.  The woman followed her lead.

“What’s going on is your dad’s a liar,” Parker said, her voice low so no one would overhear them.  “He’s not who he says he is, and I don’t want to be involved in it anymore, so you should take it up with him.”

The woman looked like she was about to say something, to push further, but she thought better of it.  She grabbed a napkin off the bar, wrote something down, and slid it over to Parker.

“I'm gonna be in town for a few days,” she said.  “If you feel like telling me anything else, call me.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Parker muttered as the woman stood up and left.

* * *

 

Parker had no idea why she’d even kept Archie’s daughter’s number, but she had.  Every couple hours, she’d take the napkin out of her pocket, stare at it for a few seconds, then shove it back in.  It was maybe the third time she’d done this when Sophie saw it.

“Who’s number is that?” she asked, a tiny, somewhat-suggestive smile crossing her lips.

“Ew, no,” Parker said.  “Not like that.  It’s not important.”

“Then why are you staring at it like that?”

Parker shifted uncomfortably.  She didn’t know what she was supposed to do in this kind of situation, but if anyone knew, it was Sophie, right?

“One of Archie’s kids came looking for me,” she said.  “She gave me this and said to call her.”

“Are you going to?” Sophie asked, sitting down next to her friend.

Parker shrugged.  “Should I?” she asked.

“That’s up to you,” Sophie said.  “But it might help if you tell her your version of the story before Archie does.”

“Help with what?”

“It might help her realize who he really is, it might help you feel better,” Sophie said.  “But don’t talk to her if you don’t want to.”

Parker absently tore at the edges of the napkin, thinking.  This woman wasn’t her sister.  Parker didn’t owe her anything.  If she hadn’t realized the kind of person her father was, wasn’t that her problem?  Now that she knew Parker existed, she could confront Archie about it, and if he came up with another lie and she believed it, well, it wasn’t Parker’s responsibility to fix it, was it?

She crumpled up the napkin, intending to throw it across the room into the trashcan, but she hesitated.  Maybe….  She stood up and left the room, pulling her phone out of her pocket.  She dialed the number and hit “send.”  She almost hung up immediately, but made herself wait as the phone rang.

“Hello?”

Parker hesitated.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Parker said.  “It’s me…it’s Parker.  From the brewpub.  I just realized, I never found out your name.”

“It’s Mia,” the woman said.  Once again, Parker considered hanging up.  She had a name now.  It was too real.

“Do you still want to talk?” Parker asked, each word feeling like broken glass in her mouth.

“Yes,” Mia said quickly, as if she was afraid Parker would retract the offer.  “Absolutely.  When?”

“Tomorrow night good?” Parker asked.  “Brewpub, around seven?”

“I’ll be there.”

* * *

 

As Parker sat on the barstool, bouncing her leg up and down, she considered bolting.  Maybe this was a mistake.  The decision was taken out of her hands by Mia walking in the door, spotting her, and walking over to her.

“Thank you so much,” she said as she made to sit down next to Parker.  Parker shook her head.

“There’s a back room where we can talk,” Parker said.  “It’s quieter.”  She stood up and led the way to their briefing room, which she had gone through earlier, hiding any trace of her real job.  _Kind of like Archie._   She violently shoved that thought down.

Parker sat down, holding out a bottle of Hardison’s beer toward Mia, who took with a muttered “thanks” and sat down.

“So, you run a bar,” Mia said.  “That’s pretty cool.”

“I guess,” Parker said.  “My friend Hardison really runs it, though.”

Mia nodded and the moment fell into awkward silence.  Parker took a sip of her beer so she didn’t have to say anything.

“I'm a lawyer,” she said.

“Oh,” Parker said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.  “Where did you go to --”

“Georgetown.”

Silence again.

“This is weird,” Parker said, finally.  “Look, I don’t think you really came here to get to know me and I'm not good at that kind of thing, anyway, so what do you want to know?”

Mia looked relieved.

“You said you’re not really my dad’s kid?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Parker said.  “I'm not.”

“So why does he say you are?”

Parker sighed, scuffing her toes on the floor.  “Mia, Archie’s a thief,” she said.  “One of the best in the world.  And he trained me to be just as good as him.  The way he sees it, he _made_ me, and that makes me…his.”

She took another sip of her beer.  She didn’t particularly _like_ alcohol, but boy did she need it right now.

“Look, I'm sorry,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure if she really was.  “I'm not good at sugar-coating things.”

“It’s fine,” Mia muttered.  “It’s just a lot.  When did you meet him?”

“1998,” Parker said.  “I was 11.  I stole his wallet, he noticed, and he decided I had talent or something, so…”

“None of this makes any sense,” Mia said.  “I was 16 when that happened.  I was getting ready to start college, and my dad was teaching some kid how to be a thief.”

“Well, I was already a thief,” Parker said.  “He just taught me how to be a better one.”

Mia shook her head.  “I'm sorry,” she said.

Parker shrugged.  “You didn’t do anything,” she said.

“I'm still sorry,” Mia said.  “What he did was…it was messed up.”

Something strange stirred in Parker’s chest.  For years, she’d been made to believe that what went on between her and Archie was okay and normal.  Even after she’d figured out that it maybe wasn’t, she’d always had a nagging feeling that maybe she was wrong, maybe she was misremembering things, twisting things around, overreacting.  Hearing someone else, someone who wasn’t family telling her that she was right made her feel…something.  She didn’t know what, but…something.

She traced a pattern on the tabletop with her finger, trying to avoid having to say anything in response.  Thankfully, she was saved by Nate walking into the room.

“Oh,” he said.  “Didn’t realize -- friend of yours?” he asked, gesturing to Mia.

Parker paused, looking long and hard at the woman who sat next to her.

“Sure,” she said slowly.

“Mia Leach,” she said, shaking Nate’s hand.  Nate tactfully chose not to comment on the familiar last name.

“Didn’t mean to bother you,” Nate said.  He walked past them to the cabinet where they kept the really good stuff and pulled out a bottle of wine before walking up the back stairs.

“Date night with Sophie,” Parker explained.  “His girlfriend.  Or something.”

“And he is…”

“My boss, I guess?” Parker said, shrugging.

“He seems --”

“Drunk?  ‘Cause he probably is.”

“I was gonna say interesting,” Mia said.

Parker laughed.  Suddenly the moment was gone.

“Are you gonna talk to Archie?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Mia said.  “Thanks for telling me the truth, though.”

Parker shrugged.  “You deserved to know, I guess.”

* * *

 

Parker spent the next two days mostly holed up in the warehouse she’d been living in since their move to Portland, cuddled in her bed with Bunny clutched against her chest, headphones in her ears, lights off, not wanting to talk to the rest of the crew about much of anything, but especially not about her conversation with Mia.

On the second day, her phone chimed.  She looked at it, expecting a text from Hardison or Eliot or maybe Sophie checking in on her.  She was wrong.  It was Mia.

_Flying back to Boston tonight.  Gonna talk to my dad.  U want to know how it goes?_

Parker thought for a second.  Did she want to know?  Did she really care?  All she really knew was that she couldn’t answer that question right now.  She sighed and typed out her response.

_Don’t know.  I’ll ask if I want to?_

Seconds later, she got Mia’s reply, a simple _K._ Parker signed in relief.  No weird questions, no expectations, just _K._   She could work with that.


End file.
